Mika is back!

She stars in the award-laden Moonwind Mysteries, a gripping upper MG/YA historical series set in 1880s Sweden. The first two books in the series, The Night Raven and The Queen of Thieves, were filled with suspense, gritty details, fast pacing, and vivid  characters, including the city of Stockholm, which becomes a tangible character in its own right.

I gulped down those first two books when they came out. So you can imagine my delight when the third volume appeared in my mailbox over the holidays! Incredibly enough, this third book, entitled The Lost Ones, is even better than those.

Tightly plotted and exciting throughout, The Lost Ones picks up where The Queen of Thieves left off. As in the first two books, Mika, a savvy and smart 12-year-old orphan, helps Constable Valdemar Hoff, whose sad past we finally learn about. Once again, the head of the orphanage doesn’t approve of Mika’s involvement–mostly because she doesn’t want Mika to get hurt. At the end of the second book, she had been forced to lie low after an explosion freed her from prison  (where she should not have been in the first place). And once again, Mika nonetheless dives in, eventually putting herself in great danger. (Note that the book does get scary and violent, although never gratuitously so.)

This time, the mystery involves a missing teenage girl. Along the way, Mika continues to investigate her own hidden origins, which she has been trying to figure out throughout the series. She also delves into the identity of the Dark Angel, a shadowy figure who has been terrifying the children of Stockholm for years.

To say much more would be to step into the land of spoilers, which just wouldn’t do. Suffice it to say that The Night Raven was my personal favorite children’s book in 2023 and The Lost Ones may well take the prize for 2025. 

The Lost Ones has a deeply satisfying denoument, with just a whisper of “to be continued” at the very end. In the original language, the series is up to four or five volumes, with potentially more in the works. However, I gather that only three have been slated for translating into English–at least for now.

Help that change: read The Lost Ones and then clamor for more!

The Lost Ones (The Moonwind Mysteries #3)
Written by Johan Rundberg
Translated from the Swedish by Eva Apelqvist
ISBN:  978-1662525940
January 7, 2025, Amazon Crossing Kids

Awards:

• Series: The Night Raven: Kirkus Best Middle Grade Book of the Year; GLLI Translated YA Book Prize shortlist; USBBY Outstanding International Book; Junior Library Guild Selection (for both The Night Raven and The Queen of Thieves);
• Original in Swedish: Crimetime Award for best children’s book 2021; Winner of the August Prize 2021; Winner of the Karlstad Children’s Novel Award; Winner of Sølvbergets reading competition “The Book of the Year” category 9-12, Norway 2023;
• Author: Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award

Reviews: Kirkus

Read an interview with the author

You can buy a copy here* or find it at a library.

*Book purchases made via our affiliate link may earn GLLI a small commission at no cost to you. Advance reader copy provided by publisher.

Award-winning opera singer Nanette McGuinness is the translator of over 120 books and graphic novels for children and adults from French, Italian, German and Spanish into English, including the much-loved Geronimo Stilton Graphic Novels, as well as Tiki: A Very Ruff Year (nominated for the 2023 Eisner and Harvey Awards) and Alice on the Run: One Child’s Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War (2023 GLLI YA Translated Book Prize Honor Book, 2023 Mosaic Prize winner, 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalist and 2023 Harvey Award nominee). Accolades have also gone to her translations of Magical History Tour: Vikings and of Magical History Tour: Gandhi (both 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalists), Luisa: Now and Then (2019 Stonewall Honor Book; 2020 GLLI YA Translated Honor Book; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2019) and California Dreamin’: Cass Elliot Before the Mamas & the Papas (2018 Harvey Award; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2018).